Bright Spot

In a series of gray damp days this morning I had a wonderful surprise outside my office window. It was an unexpected

Bright Spot

in a gray week.

As I opened the blinds to my office window I saw a female downy woodpecker at the bird feeder. She froze in the position you see her in above and stayed that way until I had finished photographing her, put the camera down, left the room. Her freeze lasted long enough for me to pick up my camera, change to my 100-400 telephoto lens, lift the camera, discover a problem focusing, remove and reattach the lens, and make several photographs of her. I’ve not seen a bird freeze like that before at my feeders. Usually they startle and fly off immediately.

It’s a small thing, I know, but little gifts like this brighten my days. Almost an hour later I saw her again at my other bird feeder. With the warmer weather this week I have fewer visitors at the feeders. But I saw a pair of cardinals on them yesterday and now the downy woodpecker. During the bitter cold days a week ago, all kinds of finches, juncos, chickadees, nuthatches and more were flocking the feeders several times a day. It was amazing to see over two dozen birds on or near the feeders at a time. The little hydrangea tree near the feeders was filled with birds!

Let the world
have its way with you,
luminous as it is with mystery
and pain—
graced as it is
with the ordinary.
― Mary Oliver, Red Bird

Passages

This week we marked the one month anniversary of our cat Gracie’s death. I still miss her and grieve for her but the grief is less sharp than it was at first. I am less likely to burst into tears when I notice another little hole in my day that she once filled. Sometimes Jon and I laughingly remember moments of humor or joy with her. But if I linger in my memories long enough tears still flow. That is the way of grief, I think, when you loved someone or some pet deeply.

Our house seems empty sometimes without her presence and the gray winter we’ve been having seems strangely appropriate to the way that I often feel. But I will gladly experience this because of the wonder and joy of loving her and having her as my friend for all the years she was with me.

Life is a melange of beauty and ugliness, wonder and pain, love and loss. I want to feel it all, to be present, awake, and aware, even during the hard parts.

It’s not the weight you carry
But how you carry it –
Books, bricks, grief –
It’s all in the way
You embrace it, balance it, carry it,
When you cannot, and would not, 
Put it down.

   — Mary Oliver

Have good weekend friends. And as always…

May you walk in beauty.